Last Saturday, John Mearsheimer spoke to the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit. Mearsheimer tends to be pessimistic, but at the end of his speech he urged Muslims to work with enlightened Jews to put pressure on Israel and bring abut the two-state solution. Here's the key portion of his speech:
Obama’s only hope – and it is a slim one – is that a substantial part of the American Jewish community will come to understand Ehud Olmert’s warning that Israel will become like white-ruled South Africa if there is no two-state solution. More American Jews need to understand that Israel is in serious trouble and that the situation is likely to get worse, not better. They need to understand that the hour is late and that it is imperative to act quickly. They need to understand that Obama would be acting as Israel’s friend if he put pressure on both sides to reach a settlement. They need to understand that if there is no agreement and Israel is left to its own devices, it will face a grim future, and it will become very difficult for them to defend Israel. In short, more Jewish-Americans need to recognize that it is in their interest to champion the two-state solution.
If that does not happen, Obama will be unable to get tough with Netanyahu and there will be big trouble ahead for Israel, the United States, and especially the Palestinians.
At the risk of seeming presumptuous, let me conclude with a few words about what the American Muslim community might do to help support Obama. I would imagine that at least a few in the audience – and many in your wider community – favor the creation of a bi-national democracy in all of historic Palestine instead of the two-state solution. After all, that state would be run by Palestinians, not Jews.
The problem with a single democracy, however, is that Israel will not accept it – certainly in the foreseeable future. In fact, the prospect of moving toward that dreaded outcome might cause Israel to attempt to expel the Palestinians from their lands, as happened in 1948. Furthermore, advocating the creation of a bi-national democracy would alienate most American Jews who care about Israel, simply because it would mean the end of the Zionist dream.
A two-state solution is the only good outcome for the Palestinians at this point in time. And it is also the only good outcome for Israel. Thus, I think it would make good sense for the Muslim community to rally behind the two-state solution and work hard to form alliances with those individuals and organizations in the American Jewish community who back the idea of creating a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. President Obama is going to need all the allies he can get to deal with Israel and the hardliners in the lobby. This is not a magic formula by any means, but it is the best hope we have of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict.
We need to de-legitimize this word "state." It is treif. It is not an act of friendship to call for a "state" for some tribe. It is a deadly obsession. It never was an act of friendship to the Jews to support an state for them. In fact this state is the worst disaster for the jewish people since the holocaust. And guilt ridden zionists should not let themselves off the hook by claiming to support a state for the Palestinians. The Palestinians fell into a Zionist trap by allowing themselves to accept that a state should be their goal. (Every time I hear the word I think of the money wasted on bureaucracies, postage stamps, currencies, national airlines, immigration officials, customs agents, diplomats, and other social parasites. Most of all I gag at the talent wasted on national armies). In the unlikely event that Israel agrees to allow a "state" on a few slivers remaining of historic Palestine, and the Palestinian leadership, such as it is, agrees to this, here is what will happen: A few of the outposts that are set up in the remaining scraps of real estate will be dismantled with great drama and brouhaha. (The larger settlements of course would end up as part of the Israeli state). Crocodile tears will be shed over "painful concessions" and the trauma of Israeli soldier having to uproot an Israeli settler. The next step will be for a massive ethnic cleansing to break out in the Galilee and the Negev driving Palestinians into their "state." After all they now have a state and should go to it as though they were rootless wanderers looking for nothing more than a state (how foul!) of their own. The American public, having just seen the painful evacuation of a few outposts will think this is moral equivalence. "Two states for two peoples." The tax paying public will not be sophisticated enough to note the difference. We've got to get off this riff of talking about the "state" as some sort of worthy goal for people. How about consistent and universally applied standards for civil rights and property rights? First step is to agree with extremists on both sides that there should be one country between the river and the sea. Let Israel formally annex what it controls, including the Gaza strip, while giving voting rights to all. Second step is to work for equal civil rights, and property rights for all. Those who call for a state for the Jews and a state for the Palestinians are not engaging in an act of friendship for either. They are cursing both.
Mearsheimer is right, this is the only solution. American Jews and Israelis will not accept a bi-national state and will fight rabidly against it. I new war would erupt and with US backing or not, Israel and the Jewish people would again push out the Palestinians from more land. Israel has disengaged from Gaza and left the Sinai all together, its a possible and needs to be done sooner rather than later.
I agree. Even though, I'd much prefer a bi-national state, I understand that it's pretty much impossible and a two-state solution has a better likelihood of making peace sooner
Mearsheimer is wrong with his analysis. The simple fact is that there is no real basis for a Palestinian State in the near future, simply because there is no democratic structure given. By now there are in fact already two autonomy authorities, one in Ramallah, the other in Gaza. They are fighting and killing each other – no matter whether the media, usually focused on blaming Israel, is ignoring this or not. What would be the use of forcing Israel to approve a predictable divided instable state with two different extremist parties who are used in surpassing each other in killing Israeli civilians and themselves? Of course we all assume that Obama is out for getting the Nobel Peace Prize at best annually, but already the Rabin-Peres-Arafat-handshake of 1993 had exactly no effect on the brutal refusal of any peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians by the Hamas.
Arafat as well as Abbas failed because of ignoring the Hamas as key figure and it beyond any reason why an US administration is heading in the same direction. If Obama wants to achieve peace in the Middle East, there must be pressure on terrorist organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah, if the goal is not to create a Hamas-led State of Terror who’s only aim would be destroying Israel once and for all. Finally what would a single-state "solution" be like? An election campaign on the streets in the way Hamas did it in Gaza mummed and with machine guns ..? I mean, come on that is nonsense – in the same way equipped Hamas also would win any mayoral election in Washington DC or NYC.
Israel would quickly disintegrate were it to expel the Palestinians from their land. The U.S would be forced to comply with global boycott of Israel; extremists would rush to acquire nuclear weapons to use on the now muslim free nation – terror attacks would be relentless and jews would become targets all over the world. So there will be no expulsion of the Palestinians if a one state solution (when) becomes a reality. American jews would not, contrary to Yoni's silly threat as a whole reject a one state solution in the context of Israel's increasingly obvious fascist tendencies. Let's face it -at least half of them actually believe the hasbara bullshit being fed to them by their rabbis and through the 'Jewish' organizations. And more and more of them are starting to realize they've been lied to and are looking for personal and possibly religious redemption… There simply is no denying that Zionism is fundamentally a fascist movement – the formation of a 'Jewish' homeland in a land that doesn't belong to them through military domination and vile religious/extremist propaganda…
Long Version: Zionizing Muslims via Interfaith Dialogue describes of the core dishonesty of Jews that take part in interfaith activities. A Litmus Test for Jewish Anti-Zionists provides a simple mechanism for Muslims to identify Jews with whom collaboration might be useful.
Hamas had absolutely nothing to do with failure of the peace process in '93. That was another easily indentifiable rejection of Palestinian rights in their homeland. Nor is Obama out for any prizes. It boils down to forcing Israel to comply with international law and basic recognition of human rights or having America go right down the toilet along with Israel. And if he doesn't recognize that simply fact (that's the key issue right now) he will eventually -of that there can be very little doubt. Don't be confused by your own arrogance. Without America – or with a broken and broke America – it is only a short matter of time before Israel is a much different place than it is today….
It's laughable why Jews fail to acknowledge the complete hypocrisy of the Israel and it's occupation. Of course this doesn't apply to most who read this site, but many Jews give to worthy causes and are considered 'liberals'. Mention the occupation of Palestine and the conversation is different. But the occupation creates and foments new anger towards Israel and Jews throughout the world. Why does this deception and obfuscation continue even in an age of new media access? The propaganda of Israeli is wearing thin in the United States, and one would think it is time to change and settle on what they have already obtained. It's possible that this is happening already and Netanyahu will make concessions in his anticipated 'peace' plan, but it doesn't seem like this is will happen anytime soon.
Nice post. How can I help?
The fighting between FATAH and HAMAS and the inability to unite bears directly on the fact that the two areas are seperated. It is a symptom of the occupation. HAMAS would not even exist, at least not in it's present form, but for the occupation and seperation..
Shafiq, How is a two state solution possible? Look at a map and then tell me please. Do you see how each town and village is cut off from each ohter through Jews-only roads and the settlements? Do you actually believe that the settlers and the Israeli government will give up what they have stolen over the years so easily? Do you remember what happened last time Israel evacuted a small settlement? Did you see the bearded and kippa wearing Jews drenched in blood fighting their own soldiers? I don't think Israel will repeat that on a large scale that kind of scenario on it's own citizens again.
Well, in an ideal world, these settlements would be completely evacuated or the settlers become Palestinian citizens. Limited Palestinian right of return …. etc. etc, The point I was trying to make is that, even though the two-state solution is far from being plausible, it's still a lot more likely than a one-state solution (for the reasons outlined by Yoni C)
To add, it was the IDF that courted Hamas as opposition to the PLO in the hope that the Palestinians would descend into infighting.
By recognizing at the outset of your comments that we are dealing with a long-time imbalance of power and practical ignorance of the American pubic on this subject. As an American by birth only, at least you should recognize that eternal rubber-stamping of the status quo helps nobody in the long run, and is a great disservice to the American masses.
Neither Hamas nor Hizbollah are terrorist organisations. Both are political parties with terrorist wings. If you want to achieve peace, you have to set aside your goal for a greater Israel and accept that the Palestinians have every right to a state as you do. From reading your posts, it seems you want Palestine to be 'wiped off the map' and the Palestinians to be 'driven into the sea' (or at least bugger off somewhere else)
Israel has zero popular legitimacy in the Middle East. Israel is a settler colony that was imposed on the Palestinians in response to european hatred of Jews. Those are facts. Israelis will always have a choice concerning their future. That is an opinion. Israel can expel all the Palestinians in an Arabreinigung but it will never be able to wash away the sin of ethnic cleansing. Jerusalem is a holy city for everyone else in the Middle East too. Israel may survive for another 2 or 3 generations but the people of Cairo or the fellahin of Iraq will never be convinced of the justness of the zionist cause for as long as Zionism means brutality and racism and they are denied access to Jerusalem. What sort of future does Israel as Sparta have in a low carbon world where nuclear weapons have proliferated and the US is only one pole in a multipolar world ? Israel as the zionists constantly remind us is a sliver of land on the edge of a continent. A continent where nobody else is Jewish. And a dysfunctional country sliver of land which has exhausted all avenues of Jewish immigration and is so desperate that someone like alex miller can be an MP .
Israel has no future as a Jewish ethnocracy that preaches democracy while running its human experiments in Gaza and the West Bank. In the long term no nation has endured as a Sparta in the middle east. Tolerance is the only future. No empire has endured over the century with extremism. It's a recipe for disaster. Israel made a colossal mistake in supporting Yesha and the settlers- all half a million of them- over the last 40 years. It is now or never for the Jewish state
More of the same, Citizen and Seafoid. You oppose Mearsheimer by those responses.
I think Mearsheimer is right in his analysis of the lobby. What nobody in the US seems to talk about is how all of the countries surrounding Israel with the exception of Syria are ruled by despots propped up by the US. This is simply unsustainable over the long term.
assuming president obama has eight years in office, he will not be dealing with netanyahu the entire time. the question is then what policies would help defeat netanyahu in the next election or in the election after that.
time changes things, but at this point in time, a one state solution will be fiercely opposed by those who support israel to any degree.
In 2003 nongovernmental Israeli Zionist leftists and nongovernmental PLO moderates signed something they called "the Geneva agreement. Certainly anyone truly interested in the possibility of a two state solution would look at that agreement before commenting about how it is no longer possible.
the last two times labor got into power (1992 and 1999) they were helped by the american administrations: bush #1 and clinton. what lessons were learned from those experiences?.
That's assuming Obama is in office for 8 years. The situation in Israel/Palestine is too important and too delicate to be left to assumptions that Netanyahu will be voted out and Obama kept in. This is a window of opportunity to make peace, it should be done now.
If those of us who have grasped that a bona fide two-state solution is no longer realistic were to oppose continued attempts to obtain one, we would give ammunition to those who claim that it might after all still work. Conversely, if we support these attempts, even while maintaining our view that it will not work, we accelerate the process of exposing its unworkability.
Good point, RB…
"Both are political parties with terrorist wings." Or the other way around. Fact is they are killing each other. So violence and terror is part of their political agenda. Again: What kind of state should it be like? "From reading your posts, it seems you want Palestine to be 'wiped off the map' and the Palestinians to be 'driven into the sea' " That usually was the rhetoric threat against Israel … now an argument for Palestine. Again: if there is a civil, democratic, pluralistic structure within the Palestinian people, there would be no problem to establish an own Palestinian State. It already would exist since 1948.